April 10, 2018
The Honorable Lamar Alexander Chairman
Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee 184 Senate Dirksen Office Building Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein Ranking Member
Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee 184 Senate Dirksen Office Building Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Mike Simpson Chairman
House Energy & Water Subcommittee 2084 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Marcy Kaptur
Ranking Member
House Energy & Water Subcommittee 2186 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein, Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Kaptur,
As diverse organizations interested in the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program, we thank you for the significant funding for this vital program in the recently enacted Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus. ARPA-E plays a unique and critical role in maintaining America’s global leadership in energy technologies. As you begin drafting the Fiscal Year 2019 Energy and Water Appropriations bills, the undersigned organizations, companies and institutions urge you to support our competitiveness and energy security by funding ARPA-E in the Fiscal Year 2019 appropriations bill at least at $375 million.
ARPA-E is a highly innovative and effective program which enjoys strong bipartisan congressional support. Since its inception, ARPA-E has successfully sponsored a dynamic range of research, including technologies with potentially profound benefits for the nation’s future energy security. Modeled after the highly successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ARPA-E supports “high-risk, high-reward” research which has the potential to drastically alter how we make and use energy in the future. The program utilizes a unique and highly successful selection process to identify innovative technologies, pushes them to meet aggressive milestones and helps them to cross the valley of death so the private sector can then commercialize them.
Despite being less than a decade old, ARPA-E is already fostering groundbreaking technological innovations in energy storage, advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and sequestration. In its nearly 10- year history, 136 of more than 340 completed projects supported by ARPA-E have attracted over $2.6 billion in private sector follow-on funding, and 71 projects have gone on to form new companies. The enthusiasm for ARPA-E’s vision and quality of work is evidenced by its ability to repeatedly draw more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, state and federal government officials, state and federal agencies and large numbers of investors to its annual Energy Innovation Summit.
The importance of U.S. leadership in energy technologies to our economic and energy security makes ARPA-E a tremendous competitive advantage for our nation. Stable and sustained funding growth is necessary to ensure this successful program continues to spearhead America’s energy research.
Sincerely,
Achates Power
American Chemical Society
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) American Geophysical Union
American Society of Agronomy
American Superconductor Corporation
ASME
Association of American Universities
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
BASF Corporation Bettergy Corp. BPC Action Brayton Energy Canvas
Center for Carbon Removal
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions Clean Energy Business Network
Clean Energy Trust
Cleantech Alliance
ClearPath Action
Crop Science Society of America
Dioxide Materials
Duke University
E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) Elemental Excelerator, Inc.
Energy Technology Savings, Inc. Fireplace Editions
G2VP
Gas Technology Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
Gnosys, Inc.
Greentown Labs
Gulf Coast Green Energy
Industrial Microbes
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Johnson Controls
Kegotank Farm
Marine BioEnergy, Inc.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Michigan State University
Michigan Technological University NAATBatt International
Natron Energy, Inc.
NECEC: Northeast Clean Energy Council Newton Energy Group LLC
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Onboard Dynamics, Inc. Oregon BEST
OSA-The Optical Society
Otherlab
Penn State University
Powerhouse
Prelude Ventures
Prospect Silicon Valley ProsumerGrid, Inc.
RedWave Energy, Inc.
SAFCell
SixPoint Materials, Inc.
SLIPS Technologies Inc.
Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern, LLP Soil Science Society of America Solar Turbines Incorporated
Spruce Capital Partners
SSTI
Starfire Energy
Stony Brook University
Swift Coat, Inc.
TechNet
Tenley Consulting
TerraShares
The Texas A&M University System Third Way
Union of Concerned Scientists University of California System University of California, Berkeley University of California, Davis University of California, Irvine University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Merced University of California, Riverside University of California, San Diego University of California, Santa Barbara University of California, Santa Cruz University of Colorado Boulder University of Delaware
University of Houston System
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Oregon
University of Rochester
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Urban Future Lab/ ACRE Incubator
Vanderbilt University
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
______________________________
Cc:
Senate Majority Leader McConnell
Senate Democratic Leader Schumer
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran
Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Patrick Leahy House Speaker Ryan
House Democratic Leader Pelosi
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey